Page 90 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
“What manner of business does she have here?”
She felt a wry smile tug at her lips. A man such as he would have no idea. Cressida turned an innocent look up at him.
“Why, what all servants do here, Benedict.”
“Oh, yes, of course.”
The slight stain of red on his cheeks indicated he had absolutely no idea, but he didn’t want to reveal how out of touch he was in terms of his household staff. That said, it wasn’t truly fair of her to let him believe this was where his servants went.
All around them, peddlers shouted what wares they had for sale. Pickpockets angled in between the men and women shopping here, be it the peddler, the shopper, or the thief. One was as desperate as the next.
“This is just one of the markets,” she explained. “There are other fine ones where other servants go.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “The family that employs your old nursemaid is anything but noble.”
Cressida glanced at the cobblestones they crossed over. “No, they are not,” she murmured. She knew her family was the terrible, low-class sort, but knowing how he’d look at her were he to know…how he’d revile Cressida…
Anger lit his eyes. “The squalor of that place.” He shook his head in disgust. “That residence isn’t fit for a stray dog. Nodecentperson would ever live so.”
Not unless said person had absolutely no choice—as happened to be the case for Cressida.
His features pulled with distaste. “Furthermore, no respectable gentleman or lady would ever live on this side of London.” Benedict shook his head. “What a horrid lot your friend finds herself with.”
Cressida’s stomach knotted up. Every word he spoke was true. Every word he spoke also sent a pinprick of shame poking at her breast. She hardly needed Benedict to remind her that she wasn’t an actual lady. Her life had become a farce of Shakespearean proportions.
Cressida’s gaze caught on a young child squeezing through a throng of people. His eyes, ancient for a child, squared on anunsuspecting Benedict. Benedict continued speaking, oblivious to the impending threat to his purse.
“How long has Trudy been employed by this family?”
“Too long,” Cressida said. “Having reached a point well-beyond working years where she’d be seen of any value to a respectable family, she’s had no other options but the ones that see her living here. I’ve been looking after her since.” Cressida grimaced. “Or trying to,” she added.
Trying and failing.
All the while she spoke, she kept her eyes on the boy who’d grown closer.
“And what exactly does she come here for?”
“To purchase stock for the kitchen.”
They reached an uneven cobblestone with a divot and a deep puddle. Benedict lightly caught her elbow before she could herself step over it, squeezed as they were on the cobblestones.
He waited until a path became available and ushered her around it. Her heart danced in the same breeze that sent the folds of her borrowed cloak fluttering and her hood whipping slightly back before it could go flying from her head and reveal her identity.
Benedict took the sides lightly and drew them closer.
The tenderness with which he protected her, and the gentleness with which he handled her cloak, ushered such a beautiful warmth within her. They remained like that face to face, but her identity concealed, and his gaze squarely upon her. It was as though, even though her face remained concealed, he saw all the way through Cressida, past her exterior and all the way deep inside her.
At some point, a tendril slipped free and fluttered about her face like a brownish-blonde flag.
With an aching tenderness, Benedict reached inside, collected the strand, and carefully tucked the lock back behind her ear.
The pad of his thumb brushed against the sensitive shell of her ear. Cressida trembled. The world ceased to exist. The market dissolved into a muffled hum belonging to some other plane she and Benedict were no longer part of. For here, with the Earth and the people on it continuing around them, only she and Benedict existed. The world, however, proved as ruthless, cold, and unfeeling as it always was, and Cressida found them snatched back to the reality that was Burrough High Street and Burrough’s Market.
Cressida opened her mouth to alert Benedict to the pickpocket with a hand half stretched up, about to disappear inside his jacket, when Benedict lightly rested his hand upon the boy’s shoulder. Just like that, the moment between Cressida and Benedict ended as another player slipped into their stolen interlude.
“Gor, I didn’t take anything,” the lad cried out, trembling. Even as he shook, his eyes radiated a belligerence that came only to those who’d known life’s greatest cruelties.
He’d been about to take something, but Benedict did not point out as much. Another gentleman, certainly any other lord, would’ve berated the boy. The earl, however, did neither of those things. He sank onto his haunches. Just as the child would’ve scrambled off, Benedict tightened his hold enough so the boy couldn’t go, but he did so with a clear gentleness to his hold.
